Unit 9 D1

D1: Analyse the marketing decisions within a travel and tourism organisation in relation to the marketing mix and influencing factors
Tourism Australia
Tourism Australia has not been very successful at times due to the following factors that have made a negative impact on their business occasionally. These factors; political, economic and technological issues, have also led to certain marketing decisions being made in the business which has strongly impacted on their marketing mix.
· Political issues; the growth of their business depends mainly on the political stability in other countries. For example if there were a war, tourism is negative at times of political unstability such as the Gulf War in the past. During such times, the business would not make any income as people will not be interested in holidays during the war.
Another political issue that the locals were concerned about was the tourism industry harming the natural environment. The government wants the travel industry to grow but also without harming the natural environment.
In June 2004 Tourism Australia emerged with the Federal Government Statutory authority responsible for international and domestic tourism marketing, this organisation includes
programs that minimize the negative aspects of conventional tourism on the environment and enhance the cultural integrity of local people. This was a positive impact towards Tourism Australia as it solved the issues that the locals were having.
· Economic issues; the tourism industry in Australia is influenced by the economic growth in other countries. This is because good economic conditions in other countries lead to more people in general having disposable income which raises the chances of spending their money on holidays in Australia. The more tourists, the higher the profit the business makes.
The growth of the business has slowed down in recent years due to economic downfalls around the world.
Therefore people spend less money on traveling, holidays in Hong Kong, Singapore and North Korea are gaining popularity as tourist destinations. This is because they are a lot cheaper as they take less time to fly from European countries compared to the fly time to Australia. At times like this, the business decreases their rates to a reasonable affordable price. By the industry making this decision would save their company from going into loss as people would still buy their holidays as the price is affordable. The more affordable the price, the more of their product/service is sold and this results in high profit rates for their
business.
The current economic situation in Australia is looking a lot better than that in other countries and in 2004 was the Australian economy was ranked as the most resilient in the world, therefore Australia in a very strong economic position to invest more in promoting the tourism industry to international tourists. Australia in a good economic state would also benefit the domestic tourism industry.
· Technological issues; technologies like the internet and e-commerce are helping the tourism industry in promoting Australia as a key tourist destination to people around the world. By the company doing this, their service is getting known therefore more people around the world would start buying their holidays. More and more people have started using the internet to get information about Australia in recent years and this is because of the growth of e-commerce. E-commerce has enabled easy online payment and tourists can book for holiday packages and arrange everything using the internet from their homes. This allows the tourism industry to stop working with travel agencies saves them from paying agency commissions as their holidays are selling through the internet. This way they make profit whilst reducing the cost of their holiday. This has made their product/service more accessible for people around the world.